Forum:Season navigation
So it occurred to me today, after the fifty-oddth time of having to scroll all the way down an episode page to get to another one, that we really should be putting the season navigation templates at the top of each episode guide instead of the very bottom. It just makes browsing between different episodes and seasons much, much easier. For an example from Lostpedia: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Incident,_Parts_1_%26_2. We'd probably want to redesign the templates to fill up the entire width, and to include the airdate of each episode just for completeness's sake, like so: Here's how it looks on an episode page: Day 6 6:00am-7:00am. Of course, the style can be adjusted depending on what everyone wants. Thoughts? --Pyramidhead 22:25, October 22, 2009 (UTC) : I don't know, I think it is a good idea but personally I don't like how it looks at the top of that page. That's not to say I'm against the idea all together because I agree with you about having to scroll to the bottom. Also the airdates look messy in my opnion, but lets wait and see what others have to say. --SignorSimon (talk/ / ) 09:57, October 23, 2009 (UTC) ::Well...it seems nobody else has an opinion one way or the other. Shall I go ahead then? --Pyramidhead 20:37, October 25, 2009 (UTC) :::I really like the template but like Simon, I'd prefer it at the bottom of the pages.-2Anthony422:06, October 26, 2009 (UTC) ::::That would defeat the entire purpose. The idea is to make it easier to jump between different episodes and seasons - hence if you clicked on the wrong one, you wouldn't have to scroll all the way to the bottom to fix your mistake. Also, there's no way to jump from, say, Season 1 to Season 7 without clicking and scrolling down six times. --Pyramidhead 23:37, October 26, 2009 (UTC) Ew! What is this all about?! While this is a neat idea for a template, it does not belong at the top of the page. An article about an episode of 24 should not begin with a huge honking template listing a bunch of other episodes. All information about this episode should be at the top. The template is a convenience to get to other pages and has nothing to do with this page itself. It belongs at the bottom with the other "See also" information. The first priority of an article is to make it easy for people to read it, not to make it easier to navigate away from it. Besides, if you're at the top of the page and want to navigate to another episode or season or any article faster, there's always the Search box. Putting this template at the top makes no sense and needs to be moved. --proudhug 17:11, December 2, 2009 (UTC) : What if Pyramidhead went and made them collapsed tables by default? 02:10, December 3, 2009 (UTC) But I still think they belong at the bottom. It seems more natural to me that someone would read an episode article and, when they're done, want to navigate to another one. As it is, they have to scroll all the way back up to the top of the page to do so. And making it collapsed would make it even more annoying. Pyramidhead's only argument for putting it at the top is that it makes it easier when you navigate to the wrong page. Yet as I said, putting it at the bottom makes it easier to continue to another episode or season when you're done reading the article. Should we really be assuming that most people end up on episode pages by accident? --proudhug 04:11, December 3, 2009 (UTC) :I disagree that this belongs as a "See also" footnote. By their nature, each episode of 24 is basically inseparable from the others within the same season, making this kind of overview an essential part of the episode page. The template serves the purpose of making the wiki easier to use, but also of instantly showing the current episode's context and position within its season. In any case, I can tell you from personal experience that the vast majority of users aren't going to read an entire article before going on to the next one. And I also know that since this was put in place, at least for me, navigating from episode to episode is a breeze compared to how it was before. --Pyramidhead 05:22, December 3, 2009 (UTC) How can you say it's not a "See also" part of the page? If you like this article, see the articles for the other episodes in the season. Is that not the entire purpose of the table? The first thing a reader should see on an episode page is the title and a brief synopsis to identify the episode, and main screenshot and other sidebar information, not a list of information about other episodes. So far three people have expressed their distaste for having the table at the top and you're the only one who's voted in favor of it. What if we add navigation arrows in the sidebar like on Memory Alpha? I'd personally find these very useful, and I think a perfect compromise. I'd think that 99% of the time you're navigating from one episode page to another, it's to the previous or subsequent episode, right? --proudhug 05:43, December 3, 2009 (UTC) : I agree with Proudhug, it seems that you initiated this template without even really considering what others were thinking. In fact, both people who commented on it before you did it said they didn't like it, and yet you did it anyway! Wiki 24 is all about consensus, and this is literally the opposite of that. --SignorSimon (talk/ / ) 10:41, December 3, 2009 (UTC) :: Who said they didn't like it? What I saw when I tried to get a consensus was all of two people (including you) who seemed to be in favor of the template itself, and one of them (again, you) saying they agreed about the issue of scrolling all the way to the bottom. I assumed from that, and the month of silence between me putting the first few of them up and Proudhug weighing in, that nobody really felt strongly about it either way. Whatever. Guess I'll get on moving them down. ::Oh, and I'll see if I can whip up those arrows you talked about, proudhug. That's something we should have in any case. --Pyramidhead 21:49, December 3, 2009 (UTC) ::: If you are going to go back and remove them from the top, I still think that Pyramidhead should insert the new Template:Season# ones to the bottom, not the old Template:Day# which used to be there. The new ones are cool. Still I also believe they should be at the bottom of the "See also" section like the old ones were. 16:00, December 4, 2009 (UTC) Yes, based on the minimal feedback, you were justified in making the changes that you did, Pyramidhead, but of course Wiki 24 never closes its doors on discussing issues, provided people have new arguments to make. I added the arrows to the first two episode articles. I'd hoped to have them appear on the far left and right, rather than immediately next to the episode title, but I'm not sure how to do that. I guess they're fine how they are. As for the new template itself vs. the old one, I really don't think it's necessary to include so much information. I like the season navigation shortcuts at the top, but I think the chart itself should just have the episode titles. Numbering them is ludicrously redundant, since you can visually see what number the episode is within the season, and the air dates are easily viewable on the season pages, so don't need to be repeated on every single page. And dude, I'm sorry but those quotation marks definitely have to go. I understand you want to implement them across the board on Wiki 24, but that would prove extremely impractical and problematic. Personally, I find it makes the text of the episode titles in the table difficult to read. --proudhug 19:04, December 4, 2009 (UTC) : Mostly I agree with Proudhug's assessment; two things: first I'd like to keep for the templates is the "full" titles of the episodes. Not the abbreviated times but the full times is what I mean. Second I like how the new template looks more like a table: it has a header and a differently-shaded area. Both of these are improvements over the original one in my opinion. 03:16, December 5, 2009 (UTC)